Potentially Great
by Suk-fong
Summary: The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.  Pre-manga


**September**

* * *

><p>They sit in the fourth year common room, looking down on the new first years littering the courtyard of the academy.<p>

They are young, eighteen, and dressed in green kaki with black t-shirts. The men's hair is short, while the women are pulled back into buns. They can see excitement and fear resonate off the small forms.

He wonders if it is intention that the first years look like some sort of worm and that he feels like a bird, reading to strike down and eat the slowest worm.

Half of them will be gone before November.

He sees no one with any potential, no fire in them that he can spot. He does not think any of them will become of any importance.

But someone those pretty girls can warm his bed.

He wouldn't mind at all.

'Roy.' He turns, and sees his roommate, and best friend, though he's not sure why. 'You looking at the new girls?' Hughes asks, moving to lean against the window sills. 'They're pretty.' he comments.

Roy waits. He hopes that it won't come, but really who is he kidding?

'Of course not as pretty as my Gracia.' Hughes comments quickly, pulling out snapshots of his beloved fiancée from his hometown. 'She learned how to make this amazing apple pie in June. It's her great-great-great-grandmother's secret recipe, and it's only taught to a girl about to be married! It's to ensure a harmonious marriage, but of course, we are always gonna have a perfect marriage. There is NO girl in the face of the planet who-'

He tunes his roommate out, as the door to the common room is kicked open and the blonde, very angry Olivier Armstrong spotting a crumpled piece of paper.

'Get the damn smirk off your face Mustang.' She growls and throws herself into an armchair.

'I'm not smirking Olivier, this is my natural expression.'

'Like hell it is.'

'I take it that you found out.' He says, trying to contain the mirth in his voice.

'First year dormitory.' Olivier says, forcing herself to be calm. 'They want me to be the _advisor _for the first year dorm.'

'That means you have potential to be a leader.' He says. She chucks a cushion at him.

Maes tries to hide his laughter. They all know that only the cadets who are going to be assigned to the most desolated places are made first year dorm advisors.

Sending a fourth year to the first year dormitory, means you are sending them as far as you can, while still keeping them in school property.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Departing summer hath assumed<strong>_

_**An aspect tenderly illumed,**_

_**The gentlest look of spring;**_

_**That calls from yonder leafy shade**_

_**Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,**_

_**A timely carolling.**_

_- William Wordsworth_

* * *

><p>She is nervous.<p>

Her palms are sweaty, and she is hoping that there will not be sweat stains on her new uniform.

Or if there is, at least let them not be evident.

God owes her some favours.

But at the rate that God's going, he'll make her sweat like a pig, and make the sweat stains extremely obvious and everyone will notice and she'll be pushed even further away into the background.

She's jostled by someone and almost trips.

'Sorry.' A deep voice says, and a hand on her shoulder helps steady her.

'It's okay.' She says, turning to look at the man, and blanches.

He is an Ishbalan.

Here.

An Ishbalan here, in the Army Academy.

'Miles.' He says offering his hand.

'Riza Hawkeye.' She says, taking his hand, trying not to stare because it's rude.

'I'm a quarter Ishbalan.' He offers, noticing her obvious staring and giving her an explanation.

Though to be fair, he doesn't need to offer one.

'Only a quarter?' Another male voice interrupts the conversation, and they both turn. The speaker is a tall, lanky man with blonde hair, and an unstuck shirt. 'I'd think you were full blooded Ishbalan with the way you look.'

'And you are?' Miles says, his voice dripping in venom.

'Jean Havoc.' He says easily manoeuvring himself into the circle. 'Nice at meet you Ishi, Riza.'

Miles straightens and leaves at the derogatory term.

'Why did you say that?' She demands, turning on him, her fists curled.

He may be an Ishbalan, but so far he has been the only decent person to her.

'He's gotta get use to it.' Jean says lazily, 'There's not a lot of tolerance here for the Ishbalans, and looking like he is, he's gonna get the full shit of it all. I mean we're at war with them. A lotta people have died coz of the war.'

'So that gives you the right to talk to people like that?'

'Not at all.' He says. 'But they think they do.' He grins and leaves her standing there alone.

* * *

><p>She is standing on the steps with the first years male advisor, a nobody who she doesn't know his name of at all, and surveying the fifty or so first year cadets ready to join the military.<p>

There is an Ishbalan man, who is taller than the rest and given a wide berth, and who is ignoring the staring by all the other cadets. In the middle of the ladies is a lanky blonde pretty boy lapping up the affection. Another Mustang, but blonde, and maybe not as skilled. Or more skilled. Because really, Mustang's only asset is his alchemy.

And in the back is a girl. All the other female cadets look eighteen or older, but she looks younger perhaps fourteen with pale blonde hair falling out of a messy bun. She will get destroyed in battle.

'When I call your name you will be given your roommate and you will receive your training schedule.'

* * *

><p>What luck.<p>

He tosses his duffel bag on the bed on the left side of the small dorm room and flops on the bed.

He scowls, the bed is really too hard. The military is really against sleeping in, if these beds are any indication.

'What's wrong? Did you want the bed?' He asks, to the silent man standing in the doorway, with a look of disgust on his face.

'You don't have any problems with rooming with an 'Ishi'?' Miles asks. His tone is silently acidic, and monotone.

He deserves that.

But, life's tough, and if he doesn't find a way to figure out how to deal with the shit the upperclassmen and their own class is going to give him, then he's screwed five ways to Friday.

'D'you snore?'

'I'm unaware if I do.'

What a boring…and unexpected response. Rooming with him may just be interesting, if they can get over this lump.

'D'you like polka music?'

He doesn't dignify that with an answer.

'We'll be fine then.' He says, finishing the conversation, since it's become obvious that there is no real way that this conversation is going to work.

He only hopes that before break things get better.

* * *

><p>AN: I know that this is probably out of character. But it's dealing with the idea that all of them where in the Academy in or about the same time. As there is little known about the Academy, I've made it all up. I've also tweaked and played with characters ages and all of the other things. I hope you enjoy this.


End file.
